


Cruise Control

by RileyC



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Superman - All Media Types, World's Finest (Comics)
Genre: Identity Porn, M/M, Mental Health Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-05
Updated: 2013-12-05
Packaged: 2018-01-03 12:44:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1070592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RileyC/pseuds/RileyC
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The guys meet for the first time while on a cruise and things weren't going that well before The Ventriloquist and Scarface gang hijacked the ship...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cruise Control

**Author's Note:**

> This was posted earlier this year on my LiveJournal blog, and at the time was going to be the first in a series of three stories involving Clark, Bruce, and trouble at sea. That never quite worked out, however, so here it is for the archive.

Batman skidded along the deck, immediately sprang back up and went after Rhino one more time. This time he brought the behemoth down with a crash that rattled the lido deck hard enough to slosh water out of the pool. As he trussed Rhino up, he called over to Superman, “Take out the dummy!”  
  
Eyes like no blue on Earth looked at him like he like he’d lost his mind. _(How had he missed those eyes? Why hadn’t he stopped to wonder why a mousy reporter had a body a Greek god would envy?)_ He pointed at Arnold Wesker, cowering in a corner with Scarface clutched to his chest. “The ventriloquist’s dummy—destroy it!”  
  
Superman still looked dubious but floated back down, effortlessly scattering the rest of The Ventriloquist’s goons as he advanced upon the gangster dummy and Wesker. “Give me the doll, please,” Superman said, and Batman rolled his eyes.  
  
“I’ll give it to ya, ya flyin’ freak!” Scarface declared as he let loose a spray of bullets with the Tommy gun.  
  
Batman had seen the news footage of bullets as they bounced off Superman’s chest like popcorn but still caught his breath in some mix of awe and fear as he witnessed this phenomenon in person. The deck around him became littered with flattened blobs of metal as Superman steadily advanced on Wesker, no more fazed by the gunfire than by the infuriated invective Scarface rained down on him. Out of ammo, Scarface held up the Tommy gun as though he meant to batter Superman with it, only to have the weapon plucked from his grasp and crushed into fragments.  
  
“Now I won’t ask you again,” Superman said in the same commanding, polite to a fault voice. “Give me the doll.”  
  
With a look of terrified uncertainty on his face, Arnold Wesker tried to back further into his corner. “Don’t you dare hand me over, you spineless weasel!” Scarface screamed. “I’ll hunt you down and make you wish you was never born! Hey! Hey! Get your freakin’ hands off me!” Scarface shrieked as Superman gently plucked him from Wesker’s unresisting grasp.  
  
“Help! Help!” Scarface appealed to his goons, all of them now bound like Rhino. “The flyin’ freak’s got me, boys!”  
  
Implacably stern now, Superman said, “That’ll be enough of you.” He held Scarface out at arm’s length over the water, seemed to focus his eyes in a deliberate manner and twin, red hot beams like lasers shot forth to instantly incinerate the dummy.  
  
Wracked with sobs, Wesker rushed for the railing and Batman had no doubt he had every intention of flinging over the side to join Scarface. He also knew he couldn’t get there in time to stop him. He didn’t have to. Superman caught hold of Wesker with just one hand and gently hauled him back.  
  
“You don’t want to do that.”  
  
Curled in on himself, Wesker wailed, “I do! I do!”  
  
Batman crouched beside him. “No, Arnold, I promise you’ll get the help you need to be free of Scarface, but you have to tell us where the bomb is.”  
  
“…b-bomb?”  
  
“Yes, Arnold, the one you planted to sink the ship.”  
  
Almost too soft to hear, Wesker said, “Mr. Scarface will have my hide if I tell you.”  
  
“Scarface is gone now, Arnold. You’re safe from him. You don’t have to go through with this plan.”  
  
Wesker only moaned and shook his head violently, completely withdrawn into himself now.  
  
“Arnold--”  
  
Superman pinged one of his ears. “Found it. It’s in the cargo hold.”  
  
Batman let the ear ping go for now. “How do you—X-ray vision.” He’d forgotten about that one. “All right, pinpoint the location and I can disarm it.”  
  
“Not enough time.” Superman had an intent, distant look on his face, focused on something visible only to him. “It’s set to go off in one minute, twenty-five seconds, twenty-four, twenty-three--”  
  
Batman felt what could only be described as a whoosh as one instant Superman was there and the next moment he was gone and all Batman could do was count down the seconds. _…Forty-eight, forty-seven…this isn’t going to work…forty-one, forty…what if he can’t reach it in time, what if he can’t disarm it…thirty-two, thirty-one, thir—_  
  
Something blew past him with enough force to almost knock him off his feet. All he could make out was a blur of blue and red as it soared out over the ocean. He blinked and grabbed onto the rail as the bomb went off over the water and Superman plummeted out of the sky to violently smash into the ocean. The force of his impact and the explosion rocked the boat as an enormous geyser of water shot up and drenched the ship. Shaking seawater out of his eyes, Batman gripped the rail as the ship steadied and scanned the water as it churned and boiled, mind racing furiously. Superman could eat bombs for breakfast, right? If the force of the explosion knocked him unconscious, though… Could he drown?  
  
What-if scenarios raced through his brain and he found himself ready to bound over the side, dive into the water and try to locate Superman when the water whirled in agitation once again and Superman soared up, up out of the ocean. Water sluiced off him as he rose high into the dawn sky and made it look like he was covered in drops of diamonds as the water caught the sun. Batman thought he might have caught his breath for a moment at the vision the Man of Steel made, backlit by the rising sun as he slowly drifted downward to the deck.  
  
“That was,” Batman licked dry lips, bit back the _impressive_ that sprang to them and substituted, “reckless.”  
  
Superman quirked a skeptical eyebrow at him. “So what was your plan?” He should have looked ridiculous as he hovered there and dripped sea water all over the deck. He didn’t.  
  
Batman _hrmphed_ a reply and turned back to look at Wesker, Rhino, and the others scattered around the deck. “We’ll need to get this bunch stowed in the brig,” he said as passengers and crew, shipboard security among them, began to come out onto the deck.  
  
“This will be our cue to exit,” he murmured to Superman.  
  
“What did you have in mind?”  
  
Batman smirked. “You can fly, can’t you?” he said, already in the process of slipping away.  
  
“Hey--!”  
  
His smile broadened as Superman was surrounded by the dazed and confused mob, all of them wanting to know what had just happened. No one noticed Batman quietly slip away at all.

~*~

  
  
Bruce Wayne lounged on the terrace at Wayne Manor with an after dinner coffee. Alfred bustled around in the background with the occasional admonishment to the boys to attend to their homework. If asked, Bruce would have said he was keeping an eye out for the Bat Signal. No one had asked.  
  
It was a quiet evening so far, the tail end to what had been an otherwise uneventful day after the morning’s cruise ship excitement. He _had_ anticipated a visitor but that began to look ever more unlikely as the hours ticked by. If he was annoyed by this—and it was annoyance, he was in no sense disappointed; it was important to be definite about that—it would pass soon enough. No doubt Metropolis had a record number of kittens to rescue from trees, or Lex Luthor had launched another diabolical plan. Before Bruce could give serious consideration to a scenario where the cats were furry pawns in Luthor’s megalomaniacal schemes, the doorbell rang.  
  
He rapidly ran through a list of _other_ people who might drop by unannounced at this hour and made sure his features were carefully composed as Alfred discreetly cleared his throat and announced, “There’s a Mr. Clark Kent to see you, sir. He says he is expected.” Given Bruce hadn’t alerted Alfred to any such possibility, the slight lilt of inquiry in his voice was understandable.  
  
He nodded. “Yes, show him to my study.”  
  
Alfred gave him one thorough look that assessed and evaluated before he nodded. “Very good.”  
  
Bruce let another minute tick off the clock before he squared his shoulders and headed for the study. He knew better than to anticipate he might catch Clark Kent going through his desk drawers and file cabinets. X-ray vision had to make that kind of snooping downright pedestrian, for one thing. Not to mention, how could you hope to sneak up on someone who could probably hear a penguin in Antarctica burp? Although Bruce thought he might have to devise something to test that particular ability later on down the road.  
  
He let himself into the study and leaned back against the closed door for a moment as he took a fresh look at Clark Kent. Comfortably seated over on the Chesterfield sofa and reading that evening’s _Gotham Gazette_ , he wasn’t markedly different from the annoying Kansas hayseed Bruce had met aboard ship. His jeans and a gray Henley that wasn’t two sizes too big were a change from the ill-fitting suits he’d worn at sea—but the black-rimmed glasses were still perched on his nose from force of long habit. Ordinarily you could feel confident of learning a few things about someone when you had shared a cramped ship’s cabin with them, when you had shared a bed with them, but Bruce wasn’t sure he had really met Clark Kent at all until now.  
  
“Mr. Kent,” he said, stepping forward as Clark put down the paper got to his feet.  
  
“Mr. Wayne.” Clark was examining him just as minutely, Bruce realized, and possibly with all the same reevaluations running in his head. “Pleasure to meet you,” he said and held out a hand.  
  
Bruce eyed that hand, keenly aware of the strength it possessed. Those fingers could crush his hand with no more effort than it took to crumple a Styrofoam cup. Less, probably. With no further hesitation he grasped the offered hand and felt the palm warm and dry against his own and imagined he could actually feel the power that coursed through this being as long fingers clasped his own and squeezed. The touch was almost delicate, Bruce realized; the careful contact of a man profoundly aware of the damage that could be inflicted with a single, careless gesture.  
  
Aware that Clark had a look of tentative suspicion on his face, Bruce realized the handshake may have gone on a second or two more than was strictly necessary. He nodded and casually extracted his fingers from Clark’s grasp. “Likewise.” Should anyone inquire, he would explain that he was simply gathering data. Luckily nobody did.  
  
“So.” He sat down at one end of the sofa and indicated for Clark to join him. Conversation starters raced through his head, each one more stale than a month-old croissant. This hadn’t been difficult when they were on board the ship and arguing the merits of Gandalf versus Merlin and why Obi-Wan belonged in an entirely different category. They hadn’t been hard-pressed for words when squabbling over who got first dibs in the shower, or who squeezed the toothpaste in the middle, or even in the middle of the night when they were crowded together in a too-small bed and someone who wasn’t Bruce kept hogging the covers.  
  
“Umm.” Clark pushed at his glasses and picked up the newspaper again, most of the front page taken up with a picture of Jim Gordon shaking hands with Superman. “Your Commissioner Gordon asked me to pass along the message that he would appreciate hearing your version of events at your earliest convenience.” He frowned a bit, uncertain, and adjusted his glasses again. “I had the feeling he might have meant that sarcastically.”  
  
Bruce nodded. “You’re probably right. Did he give you a hard time?”  
  
“Not really. One of the detectives—Harvey Bullock?—was a little snarky but Commissioner Gordon just wanted my account of what happened and how I happened to be there in the first place. I explained I was in the vicinity and was happy to lend Batman a hand.”  
  
“Plausible enough.”  
  
“They transported Arnold Wesker to Arkham Asylum. Is that standard procedure?”  
  
“Pretty much.”  
  
Clark nodded, hesitated again, then said, “Actually I’ve been wondering about him, The Ventriloquist. What’s that about?”  
  
Clark had settled back comfortably, one arm resting along the back of the sofa. Bruce looked at his arm stretched out there so casually, palm turned up. It was astonishingly easy to let his own arm rest in a similar manner, their hands a hairsbreadth from touching. He pulled himself back from that contemplation to answer Clark’s question. “Arnold Wesker has a severe case of dissociative identity disorder, what used to be called split personality. He also has an extraordinary talent for ventriloquism. When the two traits came together, an alternate personality in the form of Scarface was born. Scarface is so dominant that Wesker views him as an entirely distinct, separate, and all too real figure.”  
  
“And the gang just goes, or did go along with that?”  
  
“Do you know what _folie à deux_ means? Or, more correctly in this case, _folie à plusieurs_?”  
  
Clark nodded. “Madness of many. Wesker, or Scarface, is so convincing that everyone around them, him, starts to believe Scarface is real too.” He nodded again, slowly. “Can he be helped?”  
  
“He has made progress before.”  
  
Eyes narrowed as he thought that over, Clark said, “But Scarface eventually comes back?”  
  
“Yes. It’s worth it to keep trying, though,” Bruce said and watched Clark carefully to read his response to that. Popular opinion had it that Superman was a moral absolutist with no patience for either gray areas or human failings. Bruce had a hunch that popular opinion might have it wrong.  
  
This was vindicated when Clark nodded in agreement and said, “I hope he makes it.” He shook his head as he thought it over. “Most of mine are just megalomaniacs who want to rule the world.” He shrugged. “Although, actually, that’s always sounded nuts to me.”  
  
And that, in a nutshell, was what made him a hero—but Bruce suspected observations like that embarrassed him and didn’t say it out loud.  
  
Clark tipped down his glasses and focused his eyes in the direction of the door. “Is there a reason your family’s loitering in the hallway?”  
  
Bruce smiled. “I imagine they believe they’re working on their surveillance skills.” He gave Clark a level look. “I trust them implicitly. You’re under no obligation to do the same.” It was his turn to feel a spasm of embarrassment. “You should probably know that I might have suggested Superman would stop by the Cave for a visit sometime.”  
  
As if that had been the most important part of the confession, Clark’s eyes lit up—not in an about-to-blast-something-with-laser beams kind of way—as he asked, “You have a cave?”


End file.
